Alto Reno Terme · IT

Molino di Nazareno

Molino di Nazareno is an old water mill perched against the hillside in the hamlet of Casa Lazzaroni, high in the Tuscan–Emilian Apennines above Granaglione, now part of the municipality of Alto Reno Terme in the Metropolitan City of Bologna. Long the workhorse of a mountain community that lived by its chestnuts, the mill ground grain until the 1970s and still clings to the rock as though unwilling to yield to time. Today it survives as a historical landmark and, more famously, as the doorway to one of the prettiest little waterfalls in the Reno valley. Beside the millhouse the water falls in clear, crystalline sheets into a deep green basin — a bottaccio, the pool that once gathered the flow powering the wheel — glowing emerald with streaks of blue and hemmed in by lush woodland. A fresh mountain spring bubbles up nearby. The combination of a weathered four-story mill and a vivid waterfall in the middle of the forest gives the spot an almost fairy-tale atmosphere, which is why a short detour off the valley road here is one of the most rewarding stops in the area.